National Homebrew Day is May 5th of every year, where thousands of people across the country get together to brew beer. Keeping the OP broad, as I
want to learn how to brew mead, I welcome any input, and if any winemakers out there that want to share tips, please do.

The focus, however, falls primarily on beer brewing. There are more variations of beer brewing than the other categories combined.

That said, there are three primary methods for brewing (beer):

Extract: You acquire a kit, $23-45 USD, and it has complete instructions and ingredients. Beginner.
Mini-mash: You buy half-extract and use half-grain. More forgiving. Intermediate.
Mash: You buy 10-13 US lbs of grain, crush it, figure out your decoction schedule, sparg, and create your own wort. Advanced, as you are working off
a recipe you've created.

All three methods provide a "wort", which is a sweetened base that the yeast can feed upon. Here's where the "all-natural" part comes in. Yeast
makes bread and beer. Without yeast, we wouldn't have either. Could you imagine a world without bread? Without beer?

Well, the basic function of a yeast, in the crudest of terms, is that a yeast cell will eat something sweet, and poop out Co2, and pee out alcohol.
Those air bubbles you find in your bread? That is the yeast creating a bubble of Co2, but it was cooked in the process. That is why you must bake
bread AS SOON AS it rises. To let it set over a few days, without killing the yeast, the bread would grow to unfathomable proportions.

With homebrewing, we don't want to kill the yeast. We give them 5 gallon buckets of sweetness to devour. We get 5 gallons of alcohol. Two weeks of
fermentation, and the yeast have devoured all the sweetness and have gone mostly dormant by then. It's time to bottle.

Now, there is a lot of technical stuff, but I want to touch on ABV for a quick bit. I hope other members will add their knowledge, so I am keeping
this a general as possible.

After you have a "wort", and you have boiled your "hops schedule", usually 60 minutes, and you have chilled your wort to "pitching" temperature, you
MUST get a "specific gravity" reading. This occurs before you "pitch" your yeast.

That reading is called your "original gravity". I use a simple hydrometer I paid $4.95 USD for, it was designed for canning, but it has served me
faithfully for years. Ok, new term, OG.

I like to take a "gravity" reading after one week, when I "re-rack", just to see the progress. There's a formula for calculating ABV from your OG,
and long as you have a FG (final gravity) reading to plug in. At one week, I have a different number than when I started, so I can calculate ABV mid
way through.

I'll plug the formula in later in this thread.

The one aspect of this thread that I haven't addressed yet is recipe sharing. Brewing recipes are worked on by individuals, changed, modified, and
clarified. You can find "clone" recipes online for any given brand, and try to duplicate it. Most find a slight variation yields better results, and
they re-brew the same recipe.

Myself, I constantly modify recipes. I think about the flavors I want, and having tasted variations of brew, it becomes a challenge to match the
flavor.

Any thoughts, comments, or questions?

edit on 4/16/12 by Druid42 because: hit enter before posting....facepalm!

Homebrewing beer is the act of converting the carbohydrates in grains into simple sugars. After the conversion, the wort is boiled for 1 hour, after
adding the "hops" or bitterness, that you want in a beer. There are a few hundred varieties of hops grown worldwide, but with a global economy we
are able to secure any type of hop we want. The hops are what differentiates a "beer" from any other alcoholic beverage. Beers are "bitter" to
one extent, a "Doghead" for example, against a common "Budweiser". It's the hops.

Hops are gauged in AA (Alpha Acid) content.

(Right click and view image).

The higher the AA%, the more bitter your brew will be.

Hops are added after you have your wort, and the whole mystery of making beer is why we boil our wort for 1 hour after we add hops. There are several
explanations, nothing definitive. Good ATS question here. It's the way things are. Aye?

Hops are relatively cheap, you only need 1 oz. per five gallons, and my friend I brew with has cascades and continentals growing beside his house.
Hops are a vine, capable of surviving in Northern Climes, hardy, and the primary ingredient that distinguishes a beer from a wine. It's another
creeping vine like English Ivy, but at the end of the year you can harvest buds, usually 3-4 ounces of that variety of hops per year. Enough for 4
batches of brew, if you are following a style. My friend doesn't like hops, thus the AA of the ones he grows, so he usually brews stouts and
porters.

I have yet to make beer but I love making fruit wines. By far the BEST is blueberry wine !

My mead aged for a few months and was still pretty
off , I have heard though that you really have to age it quite awhile for the taste to be really decent.

It really does sound complicated at first , but once you give it a go it's really quite simple and fun . It's a neat little hobby to come up with
your own recipes and try to "perfect " the flavors. I have a long way to go yet, I could definitely use a brew Guru.

I am hoping that other Homebrew gurus will show up in this thread, and offer their experiences. Otherwise, I'll pop out various articles about
homebrewing. I'm no expert, btw, but I know how to create alcoholic beverages. Good to put on a resume, not, but after TSHTF, it'll be a good
skill to teach. Best to read about it here, before all that, and know.

You're pretty much dead-on in your description of how yeast derive their energy from the sugars. Can't get any simpler than that since most people
would be lost with the technical mumbo-jumbo.

Hop schedules are tricky to follow. I like to boil one set of hops for 60 minutes and then boil the other hops at specific intervals within those 60
minutes.

Ex: Hop schedule starts at 1:00, boil Nugget for 60 min (til 2:00) and then add Cascade at 1:30 (30min), Northern Brewer at 1:45 (15min) and so on
until you reach 2:00). *hop choices are examples only*

Speaking of hops, they're commonly used to add bitterness and/or aroma to beer.

Partial Mash- This method uses malt extract (a syrup extracted from grains) with specialty grains (usually in a muslin bag). The grains are steeped
anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes (30 being the best if you wish to avoid extracting tannins and creating off-flavors) and once they are finished
steeping, they're removed and the wort is brought back up to a boil before adding malt extract and eventually hops. Partial mash is ok if you're
just starting out but the downsides are the freshness of the malt extract and the off-flavors that it can create if not done right. This is the method
that I currently use. I'm looking to graduate to the next method.

All Grain- This method cuts out the extract altogether and increases the use of grains. The difference is that you must now mash and sparge the grains
in order to extract the flavors from them. This process is a bit more difficult at first and requires more time/equipment. The advantages are more
control over the flavors and over time, better efficiency. Downsides are probably costs (at first) and the additional time needed.

Sanitation- VERY VERY IMPORTANT! Always sanitize your 5 gallon bucket BEFORE adding the wort. Sanitize all equipment that will touch the beer and wash
your hands often! I use Iodophor, which must be shaken vigorously and dumped. If it lingers, it will leave orange stains on your bucket! If a bucket
has nicks and scratches, TOSS IT and get another one. These scratches can harbor bacteria, which can be difficult to remove at times. You can also use
Star San and B-Brite for sanitation purposes.

I could go further into technical details but I will answer any questions that people have. I am actually writing up a final project on how to
homebrew and this is practice for that.

My father made wine from the Concord grapes he grows last year. He used nothing but Fleischmann's fast-rising yeast and a pot for fermentation. It
came out very well and with only a few months of age, it was pretty damn drinkable.

My grandfathers on both sides made tomato and dandelion wine. My cousin is an all-grain homebrewer. Living in Vermont, it's very common to run into
homebrewers, especially if they're the kind of people that you can't imagine doing that!

Wow. I forgot to add in a section on sanitation, very, very important. Thanks for your comments, and yes, there is much more to add to the homebrew
topic. I use Onestep brand sanitizer, 1 tbsp per gallon, and ANYTHING that gets close to the wort gets rinsed in it first. Airlocks get rinsed, as
well as the fermentation bucket. Never had any staining problems with it.

Thanks Dru for starting the thread. I have recently started homebrewing and while it DOES seem like a lot to absorb as far as technique, terminology
and instinct, it's all pretty basic. Heat, Yeast, Sugars, Flavor.

Also - for anyone interested in a little history on "man's oldest beverage of choice", here's a fantastic little vid for ya'z

I've been homebrewing for a little over a year now and while I've produced some good beers many have also seemed to have the same problem. They have
a metallic taste. At first I thought this might be due to the water I was using so I started using distilled water. That didn't fix it. So next I
assumed it was a contamination issue, but no matter how much I would sanitize this taste still lingered. Does anyone know what could cause this taste?
Is it caused by not sanitizing properly or could it be caused by the metal my equipment is made from?

I'm also looking to start doing all grain brewing with my next batch. I've read you can make a mash tun using a cooler. Has anyone tried this method
and if so how well does it work?

CHARACTERISTICS: A harsh, metallic taste noted both on the tip of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. Can be felt throughout the tongue and mouth in
large concentrations. Not desired in beer. Also described as tinny or bloodlike. CHEMISTRY: The ferrous ion (iron) and some organic compounds formed
by hydrolysis of cereal lipids in grain, and oxidization of free fatty acids. HIGH RATE FROM PROCESS: Iron or mild steel in contact with beer;
freshly-scrubbed stainless steel that has not been allowed to oxidize (passivation); improper filtering material; high iron content in water; poorly
processed grain. REDUCTION: Use of stainless steel; low-iron water; use of citric acid to re-oxidize stainless that has been abrasively cleaned; use
of filtering materials that are acidwashed to remove iron; use of fresh, high-quality grain malt.

I just started brewing my own stuff. I have batch #2 racked to 2nd fermentaiton and just polished off the first batch with impressive reviews and
results! I'm sticking more to traditional styles but with a Texas twist - I'm smoking the grains using various woods and accompaniment.

First batch was a Hickory Pork Irish Porter. It tasted almost like a mix between Guinness and Newcastle. Unfortunately the smokiness wasn't quite
noticeable but it had a lot of body and character. I didn't do any readings but I'd guess the ABV was around 5%.

Up next is a Mesquite Turkey Helles. I made sure the grains were on the smoker for awhile this time and initial indications are that it's going to
come out really good (using a scientific method known as siphoning and getting a mouthful in the process )

I'm really enjoying it so far and prefer to master the common styles before venturing into the
Chocolate-Oatmeal-Banana-Coffee-Mango-Bacon-Cherry-Truffle IPA with a 26% ABV

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